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Claire Cope

Claire Cope is a British Composer and Pianist who works across a multitude of genres including contemporary classical and jazz and improvised music. Claire studied piano performance at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with SallyAnn Macleod where she won the John Ireland Prize and the Principal’s Prize for
Improvisation. As a bandleader she has performed at the Manchester Jazz Festival, the London Jazz Festival and as part of the BBC Proms Plus Series, broadcast on BBC Radio 3. She has also performed in Andy Scott’s ‘Mancunity’ band at the Manchester Jazz Festival in 2019, and performed on Jemma Freese’s (Maximo Park vocalist/keyboard player) debut album ‘Shadow Boxing’ which was released in 2022. In 2020, Claire released her debut album with contemporary jazz septet Ensemble C where she is joined by acclaimed UK jazz musicians Brigitte Beraha, Jack Davies, Jon Ormston, Tom
Varrall, Ed Babar and Rob Cope. This was described by Fiona Ross (Jazz in Europe) as a ‘stunning debut album’, and was reviewed by a number of publications across the UK and internationally, with the Jazztrail in New York writing that the
work ‘forecasts a promising future for Cope as a composer’.

Recent compositional successes have seen Claire win the Marvin HamlischInternational Music Award (Jazz Composition) in 2022, following a nomination for the same award in 2020. In 2019, Claire composed and performed the short solo piano score for Rob Cope’s documentary film ‘Richard Turner: A Life in Music.’ In 2021, Claire was commissioned by the ground-breaking Apollo Saxophone Quartet to compose a new work, and this was premiered at the International Anthony Burgess
Foundation in Manchester on 5th November 2022. This year, Claire was selected to participate in the 2023 LunArt Composer Hub in Madison, Wisconsin, and she has been awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant from Arts Council England to develop new music for an expanded Ensemble C. She has also been selected as a fellow on the Let’s Bespoken Mentorship programme for 20 female and non binary musicians from around the world.

Awards

Marvin Hamlisch International Music Award 2022 (Jazz Composition)

RNCM John Ireland Prize (2011)

RNCM Principal's Prize for Improvisation (2011)


Tags

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Small World

Self Produced
2020

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Small World

From: Small World
By Claire Cope

Travelling Again

From: Small World
By Claire Cope

Videos

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